David McElroy

These days, everyone wants to be a good liar. After all, that’s the way to get ahead in life. Right? You might think you’re already a seasoned veteran liar after fooling your boss or wife or friends, but are you ready for the Big Leagues?

No, I’m not talking about selling Chevys or Fords or Winnebagos. I’m talking about learning to lie like a professional politician.

This brief tutorial will be enough to get you started by giving you the basics. You won’t be a master, but you’ll start seeing the principles if you pay attention.

In the advanced course, we’ll also cover the brilliance of promising “energy independence,” as performed by presidents going back to Nixon and Carter; promising “no new taxes,” as brilliantly performed by George Bush I; and “free drugs for old people,” as performed by George Bush II. The advanced course has an entire section devoted to the brilliance of Bill Clinton, too. My apologies to these other great liars — and many more — for not being able to show full appreciation for all of their work in this brief introductory course.

So let’s get started with the most important single point you will learn in this guide:

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When you first meet Jenny, it doesn’t occur to you that this woman could have been in an abusive marriage for years. She’s friendly and pleasant to talk with, and she seems to have a lot of confidence in herself. I had known her for a month or so before she mentioned her past abuse to me. As the story came out, it was disturbing to me.

Jenny is about 60. She’s been divorced for two years, after a decades-long marriage to the man she still calls her soulmate. But her husband was emotionally abusive in ways that left her feeling like a shell of herself. After years of falling apart in ways that I won’t describe, she finally divorced him. She feels emotionally safer now, but she misses the man she considers her soulmate.

I found out Saturday that she talks to her former husband three times each day now. They didn’t talk for awhile, but the divorce hit him hard and forced him to start re-evaluating himself. She said he’s changing. They’re talking seriously about getting back together again.

Do people really change? Or are we just fooling ourselves when we believe we’re changing for the better? And when we trust people who have hurt us before, are we just fooling ourselves?

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I used to let myself get far too angry about far too many things, especially online. (This is the way I frequently felt.) Even when I was right, the angry way I acted often made me wrong. Even worse from my point of view, the rage I felt toward others was eating at me inside. I was hurting myself.

I spent quite a bit of time thinking about why I got so angry and looking into family issues that contributed. (One of my most vivid childhood memories is of the many times my father would be yelling at me so angrily that I’d watch the veins of his neck swell as he yelled.) I had to retrain myself in a number of ways and change some of my ways of thinking — or at least learn how to manage what I was feeling instead of being destructive.

I still get angry with idiots — and sometimes with non-idiots who just rub me the wrong way — but I’m able to remind myself about my priorities and ask whether anger does any good. It’s very rare that I let myself get as angry and combative as I used to.

I’m happier with myself and I think other people are happier with me.

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